Words are only one piece of what we pick up auditorily. When we have normal hearing, we are able to discern words in our own language from gibberish or other languages; we recognize the difference between speech, music, and environmental sounds; we can locate where sound is coming from; we can often identify the age range and gender of the speaker, the presence of an accent, and we can sometimes even identify who the speaker is, solely based on sound. In addition, we get vital grammatical and social cues auditorily. We can hear make decisions about when it is appropriate to interrupt. Finally, we hear words and apply meaning. When the hearing mechanism is damaged, these abilities are compromised. (Contains 1 resource.)